Communication devices, also called telecommunication devices, have evolved from mobile replacements for the telephone to all-in-one communication, media, and productivity solutions. In addition to voice calling, telecommunication devices now support video and song playback, calendaring, and a variety of other features. Such features include web browsing, video streaming, video chat, and many others. Additionally, communication devices now include a wide variety of device types, including cellular phones, personal computers (PCs), personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablet computers and media players. These devices may be configured with communication clients that enable the devices to be online with respect to a communication service, such as a service for instant messaging, text messaging, video calling, voice calling, social networking, email, or gaming, a media server, or a mobile wallet service.
Often a given user will have multiple communication devices, such as a cellular phone, a tablet computer, and a PC. And frequently, each of the communication devices will be online with respect to a communication service at the same time as the others. Thus, when a new instant message is received by an instant messaging service for a user, that instant message is transmitted to all online communication devices at a same time. The user may, however, be away from one or more of the online communication devices, allowing instant messages to accumulate unread on those devices while they are read on others. This creates an annoying experience for the user when he or she returns to those devices, forcing the user to review, as “unread,” messages that have been read on another device.